<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Freely for Thee by wyrmy</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352429">Freely for Thee</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyrmy/pseuds/wyrmy'>wyrmy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Our Hopes of Endless Light [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst without plot, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Autistic Aziraphale (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), M/M, Quote: You can stay at my place (Good Omens), Sharing a Bed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:01:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,471</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352429</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyrmy/pseuds/wyrmy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley offers to let Aziraphale stay at his place, the night of the failed apocalypse. Aziraphale doesn't quite know what to make of that.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Our Hopes of Endless Light [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980841</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>118</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Freely for Thee</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"If I had as many lives as virtues thou, freely for thee I would resign them all"<br/>- Thomas Morell, Theodora.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You can stay at my place, if you like”</p><p>Aziraphale turned to Crowley, frowning. He didn’t understand. He was so exhausted that his mind was moving at a crawl. Why would Crowley want him to be there? </p><p>“I don’t think my side would like that,” he said with a self-deprecating smile, hoping that saying so would remind Crowley of why this was a bad idea. Why he didn’t deserve this kindness, how his cowardice and stupid loyalty to heaven had ended their friendship. Crowley didn’t take the opportunity to refuse, however. </p><p>“You don’t have a side now,” said Crowley, in a voice that was impossibly soft, indescribably gentle. “Neither of us do. We’re on our own side.”</p><p>It was like a knife wound, that sharp reminder of their fight at the bandstand. Our Own Side, the same offer that Aziraphale had so cruelly rejected, now being made again despite everything. Aziraphale wished that Crowley would just rage at him, berate him, leave him here to be murdered by the angels, rather than this heavy forgiveness. Aziraphale had hours at the most to live, had lost nearly everything, and he was exhausted beyond exhaustion, could Crowley not just leave him alone, rather than raking him over the coals of his own guilt?</p><p>He thought of Gabriel, who sometimes told him he was forgiven before even telling him what he’d done wrong, just to make sure that he was extra penitent.</p><p>Aziraphale wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.</p><p>But Crowley wanted a smile, probably. He wanted to think that his words were being accepted in the proper spirit, and Aziraphale could still perform that small service. He smiled, and Crowley smiled and all was well, although the smile side off his face by the time the bus started to pull up. </p><p>Once they got onto the bus, Crowley fell asleep leaning against the window and Aziraphale took the opportunity to watch him. How handsome he was. How sweet, too, lying there sleeping. Aziraphale was filled with the sudden urge to kiss his forehead, just the once, to know what it was like. He didn’t, of course, but he thought about it.</p><p>Aziraphale kept half an eye on the scenery going past, watching as it progressively vanished behind Crowley’s cold, perfect profile, so it was he who shook Crowley awake as gently as he could when they reached Crowley’s Mayfair address. Crowley leant on Aziraphale a bit, and needed some steering, since he was still half-asleep. Aziraphale looped an arm around Crowley’s thin waist (how cute!) and managed to haul him off the bus, after which he regained some of his faculties and managed to make his own way to the correct building and to fuss about with the keypad.</p><p>“Is-” Aziraphale started, then stopped himself. How to ask? “May I-” he stopped himself again. He had never been up to Crowley’s flat before, and going in without an express invitation seemed a horrible intrusion.</p><p>“Whatever it is, can you ask me inside?” said Crowley. “Warm up a bit first, yeah?” that seemed to be that.</p><p>Crowley leant his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder in the lift, all sense of personal boundaries erased, it seemed, by exhaustion. Aziraphale prayed for the lift to be slow. Lord, how he loved being touched by Crowley. </p><p>Eventually they reached the flat and Aziraphale marvelled at it as much as his braindead state permitted, for it was bizarrely cold and austere. Aziraphale had sort of expected, well, something a little like the bookshop. A cozy place, filled with lush plants and expensive electronics, Crowley’s massive music collection, soft surfaces for lounging on. Modern, of course, and a bit gothic, but essentially… homely. Nest-like. When he was alone and Crowley at his flat, he’d always imagined him warm and cocooned in safety. It made his heart break even more than it was already broken to think that all those times he had conjured him up in his mind, Crowley had really been in this awful, heaven-like cave. </p><p>Crowley stood in the centre of the room, a faint frown on his face. </p><p>“Feel like I should offer you something, uhhh, for hospitality, y’know. But I’ll be honest angel. I’m bloody knackered.”</p><p>“Oh rather,” said Aziraphale. “You look very tired, my dear. Maybe you would benefit from some rest.”</p><p>“You look awful too, angel. Why don’t you try to sleep too, yeah? Or at least lie down and rest.”</p><p>Aziraphale looked around the room at the single thin and uncomfortable sofa. </p><p>“Um, I think I’ll just…”</p><p>“Come to bed with me angel. It’s a really expensive bed. You’ll like it.”</p><p>“Well”, he thought, “if Crowley wants me there, then I should go. It’s not as if I can say no”. He felt a little nervous though. He had never slept in the same bed with someone else and he didn’t know the etiquette. He was too tired to parse social interactions well and frankly very close to crying just from stress alone. If Crowley had to correct him on anything he was liable to go utterly to pieces. No-one wanted to see that. </p><p>Nevertheless, he put his reservations behind him and followed. The bedroom was dark and plain like the rest of the flat. “Where’s the art”, thought Aziraphale, “he loves art. He deserves to be surrounded by beautiful things”.</p><p>“Right,” said Crowley. “I’m setting my alarm for four hours from now, so we have some time to strategize before they come for us. I’m sure that prophecy can help us, but our brains are both so fried we don’t stand a chance of interpreting shit at the moment. So we’ll sleep a bit, and then we’ll sort everything, sound good?”</p><p>“It’s an excellent idea,” said Aziraphale. Privately he thought they were doomed, but he wanted Crowley to be happy as long as possible. He could give him this, in this cold and empty place. Lying was the last thing he had at his disposal, the last help he would ever give.</p><p>With a snap of his fingers Crowley was dressed in a beautiful set of silk pajamas, black like the sheets on the bed. Aziraphale had less control over himself than usual, so he found himself staring a little. Crowley was always so beautiful in everything he wore. It seemed sad to Aziraphale that there would be no record of the way Crowley looked, that soon they would be both dead and no one would remember that Crowley looked wonderful in silk. It seemed more horrible than death itself.</p><p>“You alright, angel?” asked Crowley, and the sadness drained away. Aziraphale was so tired he felt carved of ice. “Do you want to get changed, too?”</p><p>Aziraphale had had a nightshirt that he wore on some of the rare occasions that he slept. It was burnt to nothing, now, along with all of the precious things he’d owned. In all of creation, he owned only the clothes he stood in. His hand went to the hem of his waistcoat. </p><p>“I don’t have anything else,” he said.</p><p>“I could make you something. I know you don’t create clothes.”</p><p>“These are my favorites,” he said, feeling childish. “I don’t really want to take them off, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t worry about it. Just lie down, okay? You’ll feel better when you’re rested.”</p><p>Aziraphale sat down on the edge of the bed to unlace his boots and then gingerly slid under the covers. It seemed ridiculous to lie there with his bowtie still done up, and granted it was not entirely comfortable, but he had the odd feeling that his body was shapeless or unreal under his clothes, that his bowtie was the only reason he even had a neck. </p><p>Crowley’s sleeping face on the pillow next to him was lovely like nothing ever had been, and as he lay awkwardly curled on himself, he tried to commit every detail to memory while his treacherous eyelids fought to close.</p><p>It was not at all true that Aziraphale didn’t sleep. He didn’t, however, sleep regularly, like Crowley did. And since he was used only to sleeping when he wanted to, he had no strategies at all for combatting insomnia. </p><p>This meant that, when he finally gave up fighting and let his eyelids drift closed, he was distressingly wide awake. The most horrible images were playing themselves out in his mind’s eye: fire and wrathful angels, Crolwey defenceless, Crolwey injured, Crowley burnt to nothing with holy water. He sat up gingerly, trying not to disturb his sleeping friend. There he stayed, puzzling out the meaning of the prophecy and predicting the strategies of heaven and hell until Crowley’s mobile on the bedside table started making a noise fit to wake the dead. </p><p>Aziraphale poked him gently.</p><p> “Crowley, I think I understand the prophecy,” said Aziraphale</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>